1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic device capable of making radio communication and a method of mounting an antenna to an electronic device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent network environments such as workplaces, wireless LANs become popular as the form of a network in place of the conventional wire LANs. Other than the wireless LANs, devices for making radio communication to transmit/receive data increase instead of a conventional device connection using wires.
A radio communication module is built into a notebook type personal computer to perform signal modulation/demodulation processing for radio communication. This module receives transmission data from a CPU or memory that is built into the personal computer and performs the signal modulation processing of the transmission data in accordance with a predetermined format. The module then transmits the resultant modulated data to an antenna serving as a radio communication interface, thereby transmitting data. The module receives a radio wave via the antenna, performs a predetermined demodulation processing for the received data, and transfers the resultant demodulated data to the CPU or memory.
To increase the transmission/reception sensitivity of a signal, the antenna is desirably arranged at the highest position. In the notebook type personal computer, the antenna has been arranged at a display unit including an LCD panel. To further improve a reception efficiency, a device for performing diversity reception is also available.
As such a device performing diversity reception, a portable radio information terminal capable of performing diversity reception is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application KOKAI Publication No. 11-186945. This discloses a technique that enables diversity reception applied to a single radio communication method to be performed by using two antennas having different characteristics.
Various types of radio communication schemes, e.g., IEEE 802.11b represented by a wireless LAN, Bluetooth (Registered Trademark) serving as a short-distance wireless communication standard, Home RF for realizing simple home radio environment, and the like are proposed in recent years. A single electronic device that copes with these plurality of radio communication schemes will pervade in the future.
Since, however, portable small-size electronic devices such as a notebook type personal computer and PDA (Personal Digital Assistants) are made more compact and thin and improved in mounting density, a space for mounting antennas is limited.
An electronic device that includes and uses a plurality of radio communication schemes must include antennas the types of which are equal in number to these communication schemes.
In particular, when diversity antennas are used in one radio communication scheme, two antennas achieving the diversity reception need to be arranged to have a gap equal to or larger than a predetermined distance. This requires a large mounting area. In addition, when an antenna used in another communication scheme is to be mounted, it is difficult to ensure a space for mounting the antenna.